Signs point to drop in human trafficking in Houston

Signs at a massage parlor on Richmond remained lit last month even after﻿ the establishment was sued by Harris County on accusations of being a front for prostitution﻿.

Photo: Yi-Chin Lee, Staff

A year after Houston launched its ambitious 91-point strategic plan to combat human trafficking, officials are reporting heartening progress on a few fronts, including a decrease in illicit massage parlor advertising and an uptick in calls to trafficking hotlines.

"I definitely think we're making progress," said Minal Patel Davis, the mayor's special adviser on human trafficking. "It's very hard to measure. We are setting a tone in this city that this is not the place for you."

In Texas, there were 2,939 confirmed cases of human trafficking between 2007 and 2016. Roughly a third of those cases - 1,006 - originated in Houston, the mayor's office said Tuesday.

It's difficult to quantify how much impact the Anti-Human Trafficking Strategic Plan has had since then, but Davis said the city relies on certain key metrics.

One measure is the prevalence of online advertising for X-rated massage services. Massage establishments - along with eateries and nail salons - have been some of the primary targets for the city's initiative.

Since last summer, there's been a 13 percent decrease in the number of illicit spas advertising explicit services online, Davis said. In the same time period, there's been a 38 percent increase in those that appear to be closed, based on discontinued online advertising.

The city's anti-trafficking efforts have also been bolstered by a 2015 ordinance that gives law enforcement broader authority to walk in and inspect unlicensed massage establishments.

In a one-year period after the ordinance went into effect, the number of shady parlors shuttered through nuisance abatement suits more than doubled over the prior year.

Another metric to gauge the city's success is the uptick in calls to the human trafficking hotline.

From August 2016 to February 2017, call volume increased 80 percent over the same period a year earlier, a change Davis tied to the city's Watch for Traffick media campaign.

Stickers, flyers, print PSAs and television and radio spots were all part of the push to publicize anti-human trafficking resources.

Although it's easy to measure the plan's reach, it's harder to measure its impact on the scope of local trafficking which is, by nature, an underground endeavor.

Overall, since the Anti-Human Trafficking Strategic Plan was released on May 9, 2016, 59 out of 91 plan tactics have been completed.

The plan features five main objectives: institutionalizing the city's response, raising awareness, coordinating victim services, implementing joint initiatives of the Houston Area Council on Human Trafficking and serving as a national model for municipal response.

"We are proud to say that rather than a hub for trafficking activity, we are now largely recognized across the country as a leader for innovative solutions," Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a statement Tuesday.

"By mobilizing city departments and leveraging the capabilities of partner organizations, we are making Houston safer for all Houstonians and likely reducing victimization in our city."

Keri Blakinger covers breaking news, prisons and the death penalty. She was hired at the Houston Chronicle through the Hearst Fellows program. She graduated from Cornell University and covered county and town government at the Ithaca Times before moving to breaking news at the New York Daily News.